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To: Swordmaker
Forget about the competitors. How's the suicide rate at the Apple factory lately?

Inside Apple's Chinese 'sweatshop' factory where workers are paid just £1.12 per hour to produce iPhones and iPads for the West

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2103798/Revealed-Inside-Apples-Chinese-sweatshop-factory-workers-paid-just-1-12-hour.html#ixzz3wu9UBgWn

6 posted on 01/10/2016 7:53:58 PM PST by The Iceman Cometh (Trump & Cruz - Together, a Better America!)
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To: The Iceman Cometh
Forget about the competitors. How's the suicide rate at the Apple factory lately?

That report about the upcoming ABC report is not what it seems. . . nor were the comments about the suicides or photos shown in that report taken from the ABC documentary but rather from you linked to were not what they claimed. Those claimed comments and photos were not from "ABC" but were from video that had been cobbled together by China Labor Watch, a New York based labor organization that turned out to be a fraud. CLW faked interviews, mis-translated what was actually said in the interviews, and used videos from factories that were not even FoxConn's where poor conditions were shown to push their agenda. Those comments were taken from discredited Mike Daisey "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs." Look at the poor quality of the photos and the obvious fish-eye lens. . . from a hidden camera.

How is the suicide rate at the Apple factory lately? Like it has always been, damn close to ZERO.

When the suicides that occurred in 2009-2010 at FoxConn happened at the Shenzhen complex ZERO Apple products were being assembled any where at that complex. In fact it has been well established that the workers who committed suicide were assembling Microsoft Xboxes, HP Computers, Nokia cell phones, and Sony Playstations. The nearest Apple assembly line was located at another FoxConn complex 150 miles away.

The ONLY suicide involving any associated with Apple's products was in mid 2009. It was totally unconnected to the other suicides. It involved a mid-level FoxConn engineer and a missing iPhone 4 manufacturing sample prototype which had been in his charge. He was questioned first by FoxConn security, then by Chinese police about what happened to it. . . apparently roughly, as only the Chinese can do. He was then released to go home to his twelfth floor apartment in the city, pending further questioning. He messaged his girlfriend that he was sorry about something, not to tell his parents, and that he was "so ashamed" and that "I am in trouble." He then went to the roof and jumped off. That is the ONLY suicide that had any connection at all to do with Apple, Iceman.

Between the time the spate of suicides started and ended, FoxConn had between 400,000 and 800,000 employees as the grew rapidly. The largest number of suicides was eight in a six month period out of a total of 18 in 18 months. Counting all of them, the suicide rate was less than 3.1 down to around 1 in 100,000 per year, and at the plant where the largest number occurred less than 5 per 100,000. The US suicide rate among young people of the same age cohorts is 11 per 100,000. The overall Chinese rate of suicide in those age cohorts is 22.32 per 100,000. It is far higher among rural youth on farms, where many of the FoxConn workers had come from. One psychologist who had been brought in to study the spate of suicides seriously asked why FoxConn wasn't being praised for maintaining a facility where conditions were so good that it LOWERED the suicide rate among young people because they were so contented to work there!

Those outside psychologists doing the investigation on why the spate of suicides occurred, found they did NOT have much if anything to do with working conditions at FoxConn, but rather had to do with individual situations. One had to do with a love triangle, three with homesickness, others with mental illness, and several had to do with financial considerations having to do with the family benefit paid to the families of suicides by Terry Gou, the CEO of FoxConn. It seems they decided their families would be better off with them dead than alive and working. They even told their friends and families of their decisions.

Once FoxConn's CEO stopped his policy of paying suicide surviving families between $25,000 and $50,000 bereavement and condolence compensation, the suicides stopped. The suicide rate at all of FoxConn's facilities which now employ upwards of 1.5 million people, is now approximately 0.55 per 100,000. In 2013, there were ZERO suicides among all of FoxConn's workers either at work, or at home.

The suicide rate at American Ivy League Universities is FAR higher than FoxConns at the peak of the suicides in 2010.

Your estimate of the pay rate of workers on the Apple assembly lines is totally off the mark. Workers at FoxConn's assembly lines working on Apple products are paid up to $3.70 an hour equivalent. That 1.12 pound ($1.87 in 2012, keep in mind the cost of living in China is about 1/8th what it is in the US) per hour equivalent rate is what China watch claims and is the Chinese minimum wage for factory workers. . . is not what FoxConn even pays its regular assembly line workers much less what it pays Apple assembly lines workers which are paid between two to four times the wages paid to workers who work on assembling things for Microsoft, HP, Sony, Lenovo, and the 500 or so other contracts companies FoxConn does work for. Apple's contract specifies their workers are to be paid better.

Why do you think there are thousands of workers who queue up for every single job opening on Apple's assembly line at FoxConn? It is because of the better pay and conditions on Apple's lines.

Here is a report on FoxConn in general written by a disinterested third party who works across from one of their plants:

Foxconn: The Fire That Wasn't
BY Brad Hall - 03/15/12 - 09:41 AM EDT

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Over the past month, media reports have made Foxconn (FXCNY.PK:OTC) the icon of Chinese labor suffering. Headlines from The Telegraph (March 7) read "iPhone Workers Beg Apple for Better Working Conditions." Daily Tech wrote, "Employees at Apple's Hellish Foxconn Factory Feel Life is 'Meaningless'." Sounds like a scary place.

My office building shares a property line with Foxconn's largest plant in Shenzhen. Every night I see Foxconn employees at restaurants. They seem happy, but after reading many articles, I've come to view them with pity. Yet, friends who work as consultants to Foxconn tell me that working conditions are quite good.

There are thousands of factories in the Pearl River Valley and a there is free flow of employees between the factories. I wondered how could a company be so abusive and yet so successful? It seemed to defy logic.

I began to wonder, "What does Foxconn look like through the eyes of its employees?"

Foxconn is a Taiwanese-owned company that produces about 40% of the world's consumer electronic products and is Apple's (AAPL_) largest supplier. Its largest factory in Shenzhen employs approximately 300,000 young adults. It's beyond huge. As a personal disclosure, I am neither related to, nor friends with any FoxConn employee and I do not own Foxconn stock. I do own AAPL.

Most FoxConn employees come from the countryside where their hardworking families have farmed the same land for many generations. They dutifully send home part of their paycheck each month.

From 1988 until 2009, four Foxconn employees attempted suicide on-site (0.18 per year). In 2010, that number increased almost one hundred times to eighteen. In 2011, it fell again to four. What happened in 2010?

In 2010, embarrassed by bad publicity, the company offered condolence pay packages equivalent to 10 years' salary to families of the deceased. This was widely reported in China and company officials say the incentive served as a call for depressed individuals to join Foxconn and leave life with honor. Foxconn CEO, Terry Gou read this letter to shareholders: "...now I'm going to jump off Foxconn, really leaving now, but you don't have to be sad, because Foxconn will pay a bit of money, this is all your son can repay you now."

In the second half of 2010, Foxconn publically stopped the condolence payments. In 2011, the suicide rate dropped by almost 80%. It is important to note that even at its peak, Foxconn's suicide rate was 1.5 per 100,000 vs. 3.1 per 100,000 in China -- half the suicide rate of society at large.

Maybe the suicides were not about labor conditions.

Last week, my colleague Jiangying, a 23-year-old Chinese woman, and I randomly interviewed 22 Foxconn employees to see their world through their eyes. We assiduously adhered to behavioral science protocols for unbiased questioning, but you can judge for yourself. Here are our questions and here's what we heard.

"Tell us about your day at work. What do you like and not like about your job?"

Most told us that their job was "OK." No one brought up the topic that work was too demanding. So we asked about their work demands. Almost all said they were reasonable. Surprisingly, one third said their workload was "light or "easy," but none of these worked on the production line. We asked them if their friends were satisfied with their jobs. All but two either said "yes" or "I don't know."

We asked if their work area was clean and safe. All said that it was.

Because we did not hear unsolicited complaints about their work, we asked a leading question, "Do your friends often complain about their work?" A strong majority said that they know people who complain about their work. However, the nature and intensity of the complaints did not seem unusual from what one might expect in any work place.

"Tell us about your pay."

Only a few brought up pay without this question. One said, "The pay is too low." We asked, "Is the pay lower than other factories?" She said, "The pay is the same, but other factories give more overtime. I am losing 1,000 RMB per month!" She went on to tell us that she stays because there is so much career opportunity at Foxconn when compared to a typical Shenzhen factory.

In our first day of interviews, we asked about the infamous 12-hour (7 a.m. to 7 p.m.) days, but no one knew about these work hours. We returned on the second day determined to find the answer. We asked equipment supply people who serve many production lines. They insisted that no one works 12-hour days. We even stopped a female janitor. She didn't know either.

Ironically, the biggest dissatisfaction by far, was lack of overtime. Most of those we interviewed work the 8:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. shift with a 90-minute lunch break. With one exception, all said they wanted more overtime -- especially Saturday work. Saturday pays double time. Saturday work is competitive and, at best, employees are limited to one Saturday per month. Additionally, some told us that the maximum allowable overtime for their group is 16 hours per month while others said that their maximum is 36 overtime hours per month.

"What do you do after work and on the weekends?"

The vast majority of Foxconn employees are between 18 and 25 years old. Three hundred thousand, mostly single, young adults who did not go to college and leave work at 5:30 p.m. Their interests are the same as any young adult. They play pool, soccer, surf the internet, eat with friends and date. But, like new college students, most were homesick and said they want to go home.

"Tell us about your manager."

Only two said they did not like their manager. A small group had no opinion, but the majority smiled and when we asked this question. They said they liked their manager.

After all the interviews, we wondered, "Where's the fire?"

Last month ABC News aired an "exclusive inside look" of Foxconn. It was 15 minutes of sensational build-up about sweatshops - smoke, with no fire at all.

The ABC crew was given permission by Apple to talk to anyone about anything. Their gotcha moment was a chat with one young lady edited down to one leading question, "If there was one thing you could change, what would it be?" The young lady said the dorms are too crowded and the trees block the sunlight. That's their best shot?

Last week, the Fair Labor Association began a formal Apple-sponsored investigation of Foxconn. After his first visit to Foxconn, the gray pony-tailed president of the FLA, Auret van Heerden said, "The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm." Being "way, way" above average is not what one might expect from the "hellish Foxconn factory."

In today's highly connected, blog-filled world, what is the probability that, in a random sample of 22 Internet-savvy employees, no one has either personally experienced or heard of the oft repeated stories of abuse?

These are two fundamentally different representations of reality. Maybe the fault lies with media members who want to believe in Chinese labor abuse, maybe it's that sensationalism sells or maybe it's simply lazy writers forming opinions from others' opinions. The root cause is unclear.

But one thing is certain -- the media is not telling you the truth.

At the time of publication, the author was long AAPL, although positions may change at any time.

Hall is managing director of Human Capital Systems

(www.humancapitalsystems.com), a firm that designs systems for improving workforce performance. He is also an instructor in Duke Corporate Education's teaching network and author of The New Human Capital Strategy. Hall was formerly a senior vice president at ABN AMRO Bank in Amsterdam and IBM Asia-Pacific's executive in charge of executive leadership and organization effectiveness. During his tenure, IBM was twice ranked No. 1 in the world in Hewitt/Chief Executive magazine's "Top Company for Leaders." Hall completed his Ph.D in industrial-organizational psychology at Tulane University, with a dissertation on people management practices of Japanese corporations.

Multiple other studies have come to the same conclusion as Brad Hall, that there is no facts behind the claims of slave labor or poor working conditions at FoxConn. All of the reports of low pay, long hours, and horrendous working conditions on Apple assembly lines come from a single source, China Labor Watch, which has no presence in China at all and is a money generating New York operation that has been caught multiple times in presenting fraudulent claims. China Labor Watch uses Apple as its preferred target all though there are far better targets for their wrath than Apple and FoxConn such as the companies the video that do have horrendous conditions but then turn around and claim ARE FoxConn, for the same reason others do: Apple in a headline generates far more clicks and revenue than some unknown Chinese manufacturer, or even telling the truth that those suicides were workers on Microsoft, Sony, Nokia, and HP assembly lines. It was much easier to put Apple in the headline and say later, several paragraphs down what lines the workers were assembling, if they ever bother to do so.

Incidentally, I would be wiling to bet better than 75% if the electronics in your house, including your TV, radios, Stereo system, cell phone, and your computer, were made by FoxConn or Pegatron, for a lower wage than Apple pays. Only Apple specifies in its contracts that its assemblers be paid better than the prevailing factory assembler wages. The rest just take what comes with the package from the contractor. Here's a list of FoxConn's fifty or so largest customers:

How'd I do? Is your phone or computer on there?

I suggest you do some research other than FUD sources before you post MYTHOLOGY.

14 posted on 01/10/2016 9:36:58 PM PST by Swordmaker (This tag line is a Microsoft insult free zone... but if the insults to Mac users continue....)
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